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Writing Style Guide

Description:

Use the Writing Style Guide to learn how to structure your content, catch your readers' attention and cut unnecessary information.

Inverted Pyramid style

Though traditional academic writing follows a pyramid style – that is, you lay the foundation using many sources and supportive research to build to a logical conclusion, writing for the web is best accomplished using an inverted pyramid style.

Like news stories, effective web writing should present the most important information first, with additional supporting detail to follow. By putting the main idea at the forefront, readers can decide whether the content is relevant to their goals and interests and avoid reading on only to find out it’s not what they’re looking for.

When writing for the web

Catch your readers’ attention in the first few words

Start with the conclusion, follow with details

Remember: who, what, where, when, why and how

Convey only one idea per paragraph

Use half the word count of traditional writing

Write to be found in a search

Use words that your target audience use when searching. The Office of Public Relations and Communication can help identify what words to use based on previous searchers. You can also:

Ask your target users through conversation, focus groups or surveys

Use a service, like Google Ad Words, to help you determine keywords appropriate to your content

For example, we often call our employee directory the “jiffy,” but visitors will likely search for the “employee directory.”

Your keywords should be used both in the body of the page as well as in the headers.